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Amplus Realty Fund–I, the first Sebi registered fund mainly focused on Gujarat real estate, has made its first investment in a realty project of Assetz Home Pvt Ltd, a Bangalore-based realty company.

Anuranjan Mohnot, CEO of Amplus Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd, said, “The Fund has recently formed a joint venture with Assetz Homes Pvt. Ltd. The joint venture will invest more than Rs 110 crore through equity investment, debt and customer advances to develop mid- and high-end residential projects. The project is expected to get over in next three years.

The Bangalore project coming up at Rajaji Nagar will have a saleable area of 2.5 lakh square feet and will consist of 2, 3 & 4 bedroom apartments in the price range of Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore. Amplus Capital Advisors may invest a total of Rs 50-60 crore in multiple projects of the Assetz Group over next 2-3 years.”

The fund will invest in the range of Rs 20-30 crore in residential segment and is looking to make a few investments in Ahmedabad and Mumbai. For the Mumbai transaction, it is also looking at bringing co-investors on its board.

The faces behind the fund includes SanjayLalbhai, Chairman and Managing Director of Arvind Ltd, a $500 million company and part of the Lalbhai group with a turnover of $1.2 billion . The two promoters include Jayesh Shah, the director and chief financial officer of Arvind Ltd, the flagship company of the Lalbhai group and Rohit Choksi, director at GK Choksi and Co, a chartered accountancy firm.

The promoters of the fund have committed RS 25 crore and the fund will not invest in any projects promoted by the promoters of the fund.

Nilesh Shah, president of strategic initiatives corporate banking at Axis bank Ltd, will be a member o9f the investment Committee. Based out of Ahmedabad, the fund’s CEO is Anuranjan Mohnot, ex vice president of Motilal Oswal Private Equity Advisors Pvt Ltd. The fund, which plans to invest 50 per cent of its corpus in Gujarat, intends to deploy its capital in two years time.

“We have already raised more than Rs 100 crore and we will be marking our final close anywhere in March or April 2013,” Mohnot said.

The fund has a target corpus of Rs 200 crore with a green shoe option of Rs 100 crore, is open for subscription for second closing and is expected to achieve its targets by April 2013, given the investors’ interest in Gujarat and other target cities.

According to Mohnot the potential for realty funding in Gujarat is huge. Of the estimated $20 billion invested by way of FDI and private equity funding in the Indian real estate sector, funds have largely gone to six major cities including Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore, while a highly developed state like Gujarat has managed to attract a paltry 1 per cent or less of this huge corpus.

“Amplus Realty Fund-I has been set up to tap this latent potential in Gujarat and has set a target of using half of its corpus to fund projects in the state, while the remaining funds will be deployed in projects at Bangalore, Mumbai and NCR to diversify the portfolio. We plan to invest between Rs 15 and Rs 25 crore in realty projects in future,” said Mohnot.

It is actively looking for investments in city-centric prime high-end or mid-market residential or residential-led developments, planning schemes in high growth areas of Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara.